Ythgar Vinguld
Lord Ythgar Vinguld A powerfully built old noble smiles a saturnine smile in your direction. His burning blue eyes rake over you as if you were meat he might consider purchasing, and his thin, sensuous lips purse in contemplation. Flicking back to meet your glance, his eyes glitter, and he smiles more widely before turning to prowl past you. His build suggests a skilled wariror, and his rumbling deep voice is a leonine purr when he speaks. Background Ythgar Vinguld was born the eldest of an aristocratic family in northeastern Lordaeron, near what is now called Terrordale. The Vinguld family claimed to have originally been kings who fell from power and were forced to ally with the rulers of Lordaeron proper, submitting to claiming the title Marquis. The lineage maintained cohesion by customarily naming male children with 'Yth-' for identification, and females with 'Ysh-'. Cultivating extensive vinyards in the surprisingly lush region bounded by mountains and forest, the family became a powerful one of the area, rivalling the Barovs, Fordrings, and more. With the inability of Ythgar's grandsire to produce more than a single daughter, Yshlara, the family essentially contracted with a penniless noble named Eadgar, who would marry into the family and lose his name in the process. Eadgar was Ythgar's father, and it is hinted that Ythgar's own perversions found their origin in his sadistic sire. History Life Ythgar ruled as Marquis from the time of his father's murder by a cousin until this past year. He was fostered to the noble branch of the family Rivendare, a cadet member of whom now rules ruined Stratholme. He began his military career as squire to a paladin, training to become a knight like his mentor. Unfortunately, Ythgar's ability to control the Light was incomplete, in large part due to his own darker desires and hedonism. After his wedding to Elsbetta of Stalgath, Ythgar continued his spotty career as a paladin, though frequent visits to the capital of Lordaeron eventually shattered any grip he held on the Light, as his lusts overcame him. He ceased to wield the Light, and became an effective and cunning swordsman of no small repute, and an equally dangerous political opponent, moving in mighty circles at Terenas Menethil's court. Ythgar fought and led a contigent of the Lordaeron army in the Second War, helping to retake the ruins of the port of Stratholme on the Darrowmere following its destruction by the demonic Horde. Upon the murder of the king by the returning Prince Arthas Menethil at the beginning of the Third War, Ythgar's relatively peaceful semi-retirement to his estates ended, and he fled southward with as many household retainers as he could, including his eldest son Stephan. His wife, daughter, and second son Ythfas remained behind, the former from the belief that the war would end too quickly to merit a long journey south, and the latter out of a desire to fight the undead and Cultists rampaging through Lordaeron. Ythgar set about establishing himself in the rebuilt Stormwind, acting as liason to the stonemasons who had offered their services to the corrupt nobility of the southern human kingdom. Unfortunately, the nobles, advised by Lord Prestor, were aware that without adequate support from the beleaguered northern kingdom, Ythgar was merely a voice without weight, and they mercilessly cheated the stonemasons, who in turn assumed that Ythgar was as culpable as the very nobles he quickly learned to despise. Ythfas came south a year after Ythgar's abandonment of their ancestral lands, and brought nightmarish news: Elsbetta and Yshka had fallen sick, and risen again as hideous shambling ghouls. Ythfas had burned them both to ash, and finally fled a war which humanity had lost without the strength of their many alliances. Petty politics had utterly broken Lordaeron's ties to Quel'Thalas, Arathi, Gilneas, and Kul Tiras, and the scattered kingdoms of humanity each fell to various instabilities with the exception of Stormwind. Upon this revelation by his son, Ythgar and his heir sought to find a new path, only to be ambushed by a contingent of the newly formed Defias, who seized the chance offered by Ythfas' vengeful dismissal of his father's personal guards after a violent argument, and assasinated both Ythgar and his son Stephan. Death Discovering the corpses of father and elder brother, Ythfas had each sent north to be interred in the family vault near Stratholme. There both were swiftly unburied and returned to a semblance of life by Cult of the Damned necromancers, and condemned to unlife as Scourge. Upon the rebellion led by Sylvanas Windrunner, Ythgar managed to break loose from the control of the Lich King, and allied with the Banshee Queen, accompanying her army to the Ruins of Lordaeron, and attempting to reclaim his lost will. There he learned of the formation of the Royal Apothecary Society, and the efforts by the Forsaken to plague not only the Scourge but all of the living mortals in the world, and in abhorrence and disgust, Ythgar journeyed to find another master to pledge himself to instead of one who would damn others to share his fate. He found this when he met Lord Banehollow in the depths of Felwood, and there, the walking corpse who had been the Marquis Ythgar Vinguld swore himself to the Burning Legion, offering his soul and any souls he could steal in return for the power to bring battle to all the undead in Azeroth, ending with Sylvanas and the Lich King both. He became a warlock of the Legion, walking in living human society once more through elaborate demonic spellwork which permitted him to drain the lives of his enemies and use their life forces to maintain a living appearance. Once returned to the land of the living, Ythgar was confronted by his remaining son, who demanded the signet denoting the rank of Marquis from the father whose death he had helped engineer. Ythgar mocked Ythfas, and sent him away, continuing their feud and bringing dark hatreds into it with the revelation of his undead nature. Constantly thwarted by his son, Ythgar attempted to gather power among the human nobility, with mixed results. He found himself with a worshipful Sin'dorei servant named Velion, and when Velion's lover Thienna attempted to subvert Ythgar and destroy him in return for Velion's servitude, Ythgar unwittingly set into motion events which would forever change his being. Thienna and Ythfas Sending Thienna away with Ythfas after the emotional elven woman attempted to burn down his ancestral home, Ythgar unknowingly gave his hated second son the woman Ythfas had always dreamed of. Ythfas's revelation to his father that he intended to wed Thienna sent the undead noble into a black rage, for Thienna was not only barren, but had known many other men besides his son, including even the old monster himself. (Though Ythgar to this day believes firmly that Thienna was nothing more than a common street walker for hire, in truth, the elven priestess had only lain with three men before she attempted to sway Ythfas into revenge on his father for Velion, and found herself marrying and loving the cunning second son of her enemy) She was far from Ythgar's remote hope of a proper human noblewoman to whom he had sought to force Ythfas to marry and breed, ensuring the continuance of their line. Non-virginal, inhuman, unruly, and barren, Thienna in fact represented everything Ythgar despised about elvenkind, and everything he had not foreseen his sole remaining living heir wedding. Ythfas's refusal to consider any other drove Ythgar mad, and following a series of escalating efforts by each Vinguld to destroy one another, the elder finally confronted and repudiated his son, reliquishing his claim on his title, and flinging his signet at the son he'd come to hate as much as the Lich King for what Ythgar considered to be the utter destruction of the Vinguld line, first through the immolation of mother and sister, and then the conspiracy to kill elder brother and father, and finally the refusal to continue the line. Service to the Frozen Throne Ythgar turned and stepped into the cold North Sea, and began to walk from his son's Tower of Secrets northward, to his destiny at Icecrown. On his journey along the ocean floor, the undead noble began to hear voices, and experience hallucinations of his father Eadgar accompanying him. Along with his turmoil of hatreds, these fantasies (if so they were) led to his final capitulation to the voices urging him to Icecrown Citadel, where he finally knelt before Arthas, the Lich King, and swore fealty, believing himself finally to have won his father's approval. Ythgar Vinguld became a death knight of the Scourge, deciding that his hatred of the elves he considered responsible for the vulnerability of Lordaeron and his loathing of the Stormwind court along with his hatred of the Forsaken and his despised son all were fair targets for his vengeance. He obeyed the Lich King, and went south with Acherus and Darion Mograine, to help in the destruction of the many things and people he so hungered for revenge upon, forgetting in his obedience that above them all had always been the Lich King himself as the utmost reason for hate. With the revelation that all the death knights sent against Light's Hope had been fodder to expose Tirion Fordring, and that his longed-for vengeance was a lie, Ythgar repudiated his new Master, shaking off the last of the glamour which Arthas had placed upon him. He took his new skills and armour, and swore to eradicate the Scourge above all else, and then, when that was complete, to finally take his long-cherished revenge on Stormwind, Undercity, and Silvermoon. He established a group of like-minded fellows, and began to plot to gather power once again; this time with concrete goals, and without his hated son. He has since wed the terrifying necromancer Paxineau de Cheraville with the goal of garnering still more power (though her name has changed, and with it much of her behaviour), and engineered the successful murder of Ythfas' human wife, whose wedding to Ythgar only learned of upon his return to Stormwind, and the theft of Ythfas' legal heir, named Stephan after the brother who died a ghoul. Stephan Vinguld is safely hidden away from both Ythfas and Ythgar through the agency of a sympathetic human warrior-woman,Theryl Miller-Duskwind. Ythgar's elaborate plot included both the Defias and his bastard son Terenius, whose legitimacy he filed with the court recorder in Stormwind before his journey north; the plot was a complete success, and from all reports, Ythfas has gone into complete seclusion as a result. Personal life Ythgar Vinguld has only ever truly loved one woman: Elsbetta. Though his long marriage to her was one unceasingly peaceful and loving, his habits have always sparked rumours and whispers. If those rumours are to be heeded, Ythgar is privately the worst kind of sadist, venting strange, twisted desires on streetwalkers and foolish young women, to their frequent deaths and permanent maiming. The gossip agrees that his beloved wife likely never knew of her husband's dark pleasures, and he evidently never told her. Since his undeath, Ythgar has been linked to a young noblewoman, and to Paxineau de Cheraville, now known as Millicent Vinguld for reasons best left unknown.. His known kin include Terenius FitzVinguld, Mairead Ametia-Vinguld, and Ythfas' various offspring, both legitimate and illegitimate. See Also For more information, Ythgar's own diary has been read by some few who explored his manor Vingetrymming in his absence. Category:Human Category:Lordaeron Category:Alliance Category:Characters Category:Alliance Death Knight